This mission is really annoying. It is impossible I've been trying to beat it for several days now. Any help would be appreciated. I understand there was some kind of patch for this mission because it was much easier before but now it is near impossible...any help? Thanks

I don't know if there was a patch to make that mission harder, but yeah. That mission was a HUGE pain. It's been a while since I did that mission, but this is what I think I did.

First, I believe you start with a helicopter or two. Prepare to micromanage them excessively. If you don't start with some, buy them. Right at the start, fly them along the western edge of the map to avoid the entrenched forces along the direct path, and then fly them onto the island. Once they land, you'll gain control of all of the allied forces. Once you do, regroup a large number of them near the western bridge (the attacks will come from the west, across that bridge, and your units can use it as a chokepoint). Use the supply trucks to keep those units as fully stocked with ammo as possible. They will run out, but by that time, hopefully it'll be within the last minute or so. Keep some vehicles on the eastern side of the island, because there will be some that will attack from that direction, but nowhere near as many as from that bridge.

Move the command vehicle as deep into the forest, and do not put any units that can shoot anywhere next to it, because that thing needs to be a ghost. If it's near the edge of that little patch of forest, it will get killed.

Micromanage helicopters to help take the pressure off that western approach, near where the artillery secondary objective starts. Destroy the artillery with the helicopters before that objective even triggers, it will count it as complete. You might be able to destroy the enemy command car, if there was one, I don't remember if there was. I don't think it prevented attacks from that direction anyway.

Get some T-72s, and two command cars. Move the tanks slowly to get the FOB in Sector Boris, and just hold that sector with your tanks. They should be able to survive the weak attacks they try. Don't try moving up farther, there are too many damn infantry in that town where the bridges are. Capture sector Dmitri to get more reinforcement points.

The key is to move fast. Extremely fast. You need to clear out the island, and get up to the island as fast as possible. Most of the enemy forces you face on the way, actualy come in during the game, so if you move fast enough, they get to charge into your ATGMs, rather than the other way around.

Even making it to the island with 95% of my starting force, I still got crushed by the assualt. It's really all about running down the clock - I think I won with only two units left alive.

you are right this mission sucks. It gets easy if you treat the map like two halfs. Get a helicopter to link up with the base to the north. you can do this easily within the time limit to get the command stars...then move units in your new base to defend the north western bridge. While you are doing all that - build tanks and secure the southern half of the map as best you can and try to push as far north as you can. If you want to make the mission 100x easier you should build a recond helicopter and some attack choppers and find the enemy command vehicles at their reinforcement points and take em out. this will make it impossible for the enemy to reinforce its forces. For my game i managed to destroy all the enemy command vehicles on the left side of the map and for the remainder of the game i only had to fight re-inforcements from the right which made it a lot easier .

Like what people said above, rushing and getting to the island as fast as possible is what I did but I also left pockets of infantry behind in buildings and forests to take out as many of enemy tanks going to the island as possible. Some infantry were lost but they laid waste to a ton of tanks.

i agree with every comment above i tried 7 times with no sucess. but on my 7th try i only just managed to win. one thing you should try to do is get a heli to that area as fast as you can. that way you can elimanate the arty as well. after that try and keep your cv at the start point alive that way you can gather reinforcements and send them to the main objective. what happened to me is that worked up to the last 3 mins when they swammed. luckly for me my infantry and t-80 stopped them from gaining the main objective and i won. but yes the map as well as a couple of others are a ♥♥♥♥ing pain.

Ok so after countless hours of trying to beat this mission. FINALLY I beat it last night.... thank god!!!!!!! This was my strategy along with the help of some of you. Save save save as much as you can everytime you think you have a good thing going and atleast half way thru where you don't have to start all over again. Having said that, go to the right of the map and take out their command vehicles spawn points. I am not sure what the name of their first spawm point on the right but just take it out because that's where they bring reinforcements, especially those pesky anti air guns at the end that totally destroy your helis. After you destroyed at least one of those spawn points( with helis) redeploy your helis to where you are to meet with army group north to aid them. Take out the western most spawn point where the arty is so that they lose the ability to bring western reinforcements. Consolidate all your forces in Lucid and pray they don't destroy you before the clock hits zero. I was down to 3 units before it went to zero. Thank you all for your comments and help... hurraaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

samba- believe it or not there are a couple levels that are even more annoying than this one.... read my other post on this thread with advice from how i beat it and the level gets 10x easier. save your dread for the later levels hah

its easy if you buy choppers and go to each enemy reinforcement point and kill the command trucks.once they die all you have to contend with is the remaining units which isnt all that much. i recommand buy 4 units of ah1s and 4 units of the heavy hogs and basicly skirt around the maps edge taking out all the units that contest the area defending the CUs. save often and do this, and you will win with little losses. i lost 4 units in that mission

A few people have given really good advice. I used the starting tanks, T-62s, loaded up with as many as I could, as well as ZSU 57s, and ZSU Afghanskis and fast moved. Just keep pushing and reinforcing as you go.

As you advance up, leave surprises behind you by dropping in ATGM teams to cover your rear. DO NOT FORGET TO PROTECT YOUR SPAWN. I placed a platoon of T-55s there, had no issues.